The discourse on “Arab liberalism” and “Arab liberals” continues to pose far more questions than it answers.

Since John Locke in the 17th century, liberal consciousness has been linked to the presence and role of the individual. The fundamental tenet of any definition of liberalism was the expansion of individual liberties at the expense of the state and its powers. We are not saying anything new when we say that the individual, in the Arab world, is a long-term project whose obstacles continue to grow as the space occupied by identities expands.

However, it seems that the question is more complicated.

Indeed, we have seen the emergence of liberal thinkers who accept the idea of ​​replacing the individual with “community” where individualism is weak, as is the case in our part of the world. Broadening the scope of the freedoms granted to communities, sects, ethnic groups or others, at the expense of the State, thus becomes the requirement.

However, this replacement is not straightforward. Indeed, communities, whose raison d’être is inherited and irrational, are not only different from individuals, but they are different even from political and ideological communities, which mainly come together around shared interests and ideas.

In other words, these indigenous groups cannot be properly understood in isolation from their deep propensity for self-assertion, by definition vis-à-vis the state and groups that are both similar and competitive to them. This state of affairs leaves political and social ties constantly on the verge of turning into civil war.

On the other hand, however, if the tendency of these communities to encroach on the individual is greater and they pose a greater threat than the state, the state should not be undermined in their favour, requiring for these communities to dissolve – that is, to be something different from what they have chosen – would not be a liberal position in any sense of the word. Such a course of action, no matter how hard its proponents try to present themselves as modern or progressive, would be purely tyrannical.

Taking the example of the religious wars in Europe, which did not prevent the eventual emergence of liberalism, will not help to make the situation less untenable. The fact is that what made these wars, at least in John Locke’s experience with the religious war in England, an immediate cause of the emergence of liberalism, was precisely the fact that it was about wars of ideas and competing interests, even if they took the appearance of religious conflicts (Catholic and Protestant). This makes them qualitatively different from communal wars, in which ideas and interests take a back seat while close and extended kinship ties are more important.

That is why we find that countries whose pattern lies somewhere in between, that is to say countries whose stage of development lies somewhere between the West and the Third World, are often slow to overcome their civil conflicts, while the success of their settlements remains far from assured. This is the case, for example, of the Dayton Agreement which ended the conflict in Bosnia in 1995 and the Good Friday Agreement which ended the conflict in Northern Ireland in 1998.

In our case, the establishment of long-term stability, a fundamental prerequisite for the emergence of any liberal consciousness, remains very eccentric. Indeed, our countries offer such examples that it would be laughable, or more probably lamentable, to ignore.

The internal fragility that this implies is complemented and linked to two factors, neither of which can benefit liberalism and its development:

First, we have the foreign actors, with their ideas and perhaps their policies, and sometimes through direct interventions, who are responsible for filling the void left by this internal void. This would turn liberals into a fringe, outside force or accessory to NGOs and their oversimplified agendas.

Second, there is the role of wars and fate-related causes, which can always kidnap questions of freedom and dispel them – knowing that the widening of the scope of this factor generally results from the camouflage of our internal fragility and failures who as a result.

In other words, it becomes impossible for the liberal to exist politically as a liberal: he must either bind himself to the authorities in the face of a group or a community which frightens and persecutes him, or censors him in a way that he considers more severe than that of the authoritarians in power – in which case he would betray his liberalism by mixing it with a conservative position – or he must attach himself to a group or a community against political power, thus betraying his liberalism by mixed with populism. In terms of theoretical credentials, at best, he would identify far more with Raymond Aron’s “Cold War liberalism” than Hannah Arendt’s radical “council” liberalism.

Things get worse if we add what we all know about the weakness of the social group that carries the banner of liberalism, i.e. the bourgeoisie, whose members are either officially “appointed” by the authorities politicians, or “shuttle merchants”, neither. that one can imagine playing a part in the story.

Another aggravating factor is the lack of national consensus, even a minimum, whether it is a question of defining the “nation”, the “enemy” or the “change”.

This general state of affairs leaves us anchored in pre-ideological time, which cannot be approached by any ideology, whether liberal or otherwise. Here we find the source of this historical pessimism and the feeling that a dead end awaits us at the end of the tunnel, or perhaps at its beginning.

As for the argument governed by a simplistic universalist tendency that what works there (in Europe) works here (in the Middle East), it does not refute the cynical view that what works there does not work. here: in the first, the specter of the neo-conservatives and their experience in Iraq hovers, while the latter is reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.

In all likelihood, the missing element that could pave the way for ‘over there’ to apply ‘here’ is a push within our societies towards an ideological (‘European’) stage, i.e. to say lay the foundations for a transition to democracy and liberalism through a long struggle against sectarian and parental solidarity, tyranny and fateful causes of all kinds.